Breadcrumb

AFD is France’s inclusive public development bank. We commit financing and technical assistance to projects that genuinely improve everyday life, both in developing and emerging countries and in the French overseas provinces.

In keeping with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, AFD works in many sectors — energy, healthcare, biodiversity, water, digital technology, professional training, among others — to assist with transitions towards a safer, more equitable, and more sustainable world : a world in common.

Through a network of 85 field offices, we currently finance,monitor, and assist more than 2,500 development projects in 108 countries.

Our priorities

Financing development means working for everyone's benefit, to prevent crises and to build shared prosperity. Reconciling the two urgent challenges of climate and development, as well as fighting inequality, are our core priorities.

New Momentum

In its meeting of 30 November 2016, France's Interministerial Committee for International Cooperation and Development (CICID) expanded AFD's geographical and sectoral mandate. Meanwhile, the National Assembly has increased its resources. AFD is thus becoming more powerful, more open and more flexible, to better meet the South's challenges.

Governance

AFD has now become a financing company. It was granted this status by the European Central Bank on 30 June 2017. It had previously had the status of a credit institution under French law. This change does not affect AFD’s EPIC (Public Industrial and Commercial Undertaking) status under French law, and its mandate and objectives remain unchanged.

Our history

The Central Fund for Free France (Caisse Centrale de la France Libre – CCFL) was created by General de Gaulle in London in 1941 during the Second World War. Its purpose was to provide the administration of Free France with a financial institution to act as a Public Treasury, central bank and development bank for territories. Its area of influence rapidly spread in both the French overseas territories and Africa, and its monetary role declined, with the focus turning towards project financing.

Over the years, CCFL, which became Agence Française de Développement in 1998, has developed its missions, its partners and its fields of action in order to adapt to changes in international balances and development issues.